


Forged From A Corrosion-Resistant Metal

by lzrd



Category: Hotline Miami (Video Games)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Hawaiian Conflict Era, Kissing, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 04:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6641218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lzrd/pseuds/lzrd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jacket gives Beard a token of his affection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forged From A Corrosion-Resistant Metal

The harsh afternoon light dripped down your head like the sun was running its bright talons through your hair, tracing the sharp threads of gold buried there. I don't even think you knew how much you looked the part of some ancient statue carved in copper to match your hair, impassive face turned down as you turned the skin warmed aluminum in your hands. You were so pensive, it was then I understood austerity to be something not cold and bloodless, but searingly hot, thumping in time with your heartbeat.

It was always you keeping the beat, after all, boot falls slamming down behind you in tight synchronicity towards the next set of warm bodies soon to be cooled.

It was you keeping time too, counting hours, days, weeks, between missions, until the return home. The others had a game, where they'd get you distracted and turn you away from clocks and calendars and ask you "How long now, Lieutenant?" It was funny, that you always seemed to know without looking, a real wind-up soldier with cogs grinding away up there, huh?

A predisposition towards ceaseless sorting and categorizing of new intel was what you considered your strongest skill.

Fresh information was rolling in all the time and I found myself wondering when your battery would run down. Months in, the exhaustion drawing harsh lines across your face had everyone making careful detours around you when new reports came in.

The jokes stopped.

Your speech had gotten calmer somehow, fogged glass placed in front of something best left unseen. Still your watchful gaze swept over us, never finding us wanting. We knew the consequences of being short changed, making up for the lack with the skin off of our backs. It had always been a desperate game of catch up and none of us ever forgot that, as your directives grew more foreboding, hope evaporating with every delay and shortage.

You couldn't seem to figure out how to rearrange your face, as you examined the gift I'd dropped into your cupped palms. It had been stuck in something half terrified, mouth open in a thin slash and eyes squinted at it, but when you tilted your head up to meet my gaze it slipped off your face, replaced with an openness I had only seen a couple of precious times in the cool dawn when it was only us. I treasured those moments when it was like we were the only ones awake on the whole island.

"I think you'll want to keep this. The tour isn't over, there are still battles to be fought... maybe too many, in fact." You smiled as you finished the sentence like you didn't even notice the grim uncertainty that seemed to hang off of your words more and more often every day.

I pushed your outstretched hand back towards you, watching it close as it drew nearer to your chest, like a pale trap closing around an animal's leg in a forest somewhere. Your eyebrows rose as I left my hand there, on your wrist, and I wondered what would come next.

We both leaned in and it felt like we were suspended there as if by puppet strings, waiting for something undefined. Tension traveled up my back. I wondered if you were feeling the same as I was, that if all the fights in all the world had opened up to this eventuality then there was some sense in it all. I could only imagine the war, the mounting political uproar, and whatever was to come, was arranged in this shape for two jagged pieces to come together to form something unruly, and beautiful in its illogicality. 

The strings snapped and we sagged against each other in relief, mouths slipping together in an action that seemed so familiar that in that moment I knew with a certainty I was unaccustomed to that in a former life you and I had exchanged countless kisses.

That kiss wasn't the staged production that I'd imagined grand kisses of old to be, though, it was a comfort and a concern all at once and we drew closer to each other with something bordering on desperation. It was the nicest thing I had felt in months, maybe ever, I thought, but maybe that was the delirium of having a long-held wish fulfilled. You breathed in sharply as we parted, maybe anguish, maybe trying to memorize my scent in that exact moment, I couldn't be sure.

You had all the focus in the world directed at me, peering through me even as you had to tear your eyes away from my mouth to look me in the eye. When I looked right back at you, you tugged me down again, and I wondered if there was a pattern to the way you traced the inside of my mouth with your tongue, if you were going for maximum memorization or tracing symbols of protection over my teeth.

That thread of thought dissolved when I moaned at the way you were gently rubbing my neck. I hadn't felt nonviolent touch in a long while, distanced as I was even from members of my own squad. But not you.

I had put maybe too much weight on you as you stroked up behind my ear but you adjusted without complaint and I could feel your eyes flutter as I returned your affections the best I could. My intuition in a fight is an ability I had honed over time and you knew that then more intimately than you did before, as I tugged on the hair at the nape of your neck, and, hearing your groan, set out to find all of the sensitive spots on your scalp, even working my way around to scratch at your bristled jaw. It was the least I could do when the kiss between us had devolved into languid smooches and you mumbling quiet encouragement.

After what felt like a quiet decade stashed away in each other's arms, we parted. It was a sleepy stroll back to barracks, you made casual gestures with your hands, waving them around in the air lazily as you rambled about something I couldn't pay attention to in my sudden exhaustion. You seemed to know that, though, shooting me a sheepish grin that warmed me from the inside. We must have looked so obvious, stumbling into camp with bruised lips and blotchy cheeks.

It wasn't until later that night as I changed that I noticed the weight in my back pocket that hadn't been there before. It was a subtle thing, such a simple memento for something that practically burned a brand in my chest every day with the weight of knowing. After all, who would notice two soldiers wearing each other's dog tags?

**Author's Note:**

> hey, if ya liked this feel free to come jam w/ me abt beardjacket on [the ol tumblrino](http://engouled.tumblr.com/)  
> title's from the wikipedia page on dog tags lol


End file.
